Returning to the United States, for his next work, LMNO (1978), he once again sought out historical references. A homage to one of the fathers of animation, Émile Cohl, it uses a simple French policeman as a main character. Cohl became famous for his Fantoche stick figure, which predated Mickey by 20 years. Using the simple technique of 4 x 6 index cards, this film used every imaginable technique from spray paint to pencils. His next film, TZ, continues this line of energetic experiments and is a portrait of his new living space then near the Tappan Zee bridge, in New York's Hudson River Valley. Breer often uses domestic imagery in his work, incorporating objects surrounding the artist to fantasy sequences using Polaroid photographs reworked with erasable marker pens. The compositions, as always on 4 x 6 index cards, are enhanced by kitchen clatter in a free stream of consciousness approach.

Author's sketches of frames from Robert Breer's A Man and His Dog Out For Air Courtesy of Robert Breer.

Breer's work continued his experiments with various techniques and materials with Swiss Army Knife with Rats and Pigeons (1980), which again includes live-action and line techniques.

Raising a family throughout the 1980s, Breer began to work with what he considers "children's animation," resulting in A Frog on a Swing (1988), which is dedicated to his daughter. He also experimented with associative spontaneity in Trial Balloons, a metaphor for anything experimental.

In recent years, Breer continued to make one film per year. His Sparkill Ave! (1993) is a homey study on his new neighborhood using hundreds of still photographs, combined with index card drawings. As always, he prefers animation "close to home."

Today, Breer continues exploring animated forms while teaching animation at Cooper Union in New York City. When asked about his current work, he says that he still relies on the history of cinema and early "gadgets" as the source of his inspiration. His most recent work Now You See It (1996), now on exhibit at the American Museum of the Moving Image, in New York, uses a two sided panel which spins into an animated film much like a Thaumatrope, the first cinematic device that used persistence of vision back in 1826. Like two slides flipping back and forth, it is a continuous animation based on his explorations into the devices of cinema's early history (and prehistory), which dazzled audiences by creating visual kinesis.

At the heart of his work is the imagination of the artist mixed with the inquisitive mind of the mad scientist, delving into lost archives of cinema to revive forgotten art forms and giving them new life for generations to come. This is the secret to Breer's unique world.

Jackie Leger is a Santa Monica-based documentary filmmaker interested in the roots of American experimental film. Bob Breer can be reached at 80 Sparkill Ave., Tappan, N.Y. 10983. Fax (914) 365-3117.